Help your customers stay secure during the COVID-19 pandemic

Chances are, like most of the country, you and your customers are working from home right now – which means a secure IT setup has never been more important.

And with reports that COVID-19 related phishing attacks have seen a 600% increase in the first quarter of the year, now is the time to ensure that businesses know about the threats that are cropping up – and what they can do to protect themselves.

Cyber criminals are targeting different industries and using different tactics; like sending emails purporting to be from a company’s HR department, or from their internal support team.

In one example, Sky News recently reported that healthcare workers were targeted; they received an email prompting them to click a link and enter personal information, in order to sign up for a seminar claiming to give insight into how their company is responding to the global pandemic. Occurrences like this are in abundance right now, and your customers could easily find themselves falling victim to cybercrime.

So how can you help your customers stay secure during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Awareness within any business is key to its safety and security. Make sure your customers are clued up on what to look out for: particularly Covid-19 scams like phishing emails. They should be wary of poorly written emails or grammatical errors and, when in doubt, check with the supposed sender via another medium.

Weak passwords are also a common trigger of cyber-attacks. As such, good password hygiene is vital across the whole business – recommend using a password manager to generate complex passwords and help them to enable multi-factor authentication if they haven’t already.

Employees are typically regarded as the weakest link in IT security, but it is imperative that businesses lay the groundwork for their employees by implementing suitable, good quality security solutions embedded within a business security strategy.

Microsoft 365 Business can offer an all-in-one solution, with all the necessary productivity tools to support employees working from home, fully supported by advanced security features and protection against real-world threats. Microsoft 365 Business offers increased security options such as:

‘Secure Score’ checking to monitor and improve your business security

Multi-factor authentication

Increased protection against malware in email

Spam filtering and anti-phishing enablement

We can help you in supporting your customers and offer advice and guidance on the right security solutions. Email us at partners@vuzion.cloud if you would like to make yours and your customers businesses more secure today!